


Please Don't Worry, Lover, It's Really Bursting at the Seams

by kikitheslayer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I Love You, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5019289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikitheslayer/pseuds/kikitheslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this prompt: Jake and Amy have been dating for a few weeks now and they start staying the night and Amy notices Jake's night terrors/panic attacks and sees some Very Real Places of him emotionally and they have late night super angsty talks about his dad and Amy just hates seeing him hurt because he's so /wonderful/ and loves with all his soul and body and he's too pure. And she builds a resentment to his dad. Pls. Angsty fics always</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Worry, Lover, It's Really Bursting at the Seams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for http://peraltiago-fanfiction.tumblr.com/. (Go check it out. It's great.)
> 
> Title from "A Lack of Color" by Death Cab for Cutie.
> 
> I don't have panic attacks myself, so please hmu if I have misrepresented them in any way!

Amy Santiago -- over-achieving, valedictorian, hadn’t-gone-four-months-without-being-shot-at-since-she-was-25 Amy Santiago -- was no stranger to panic attacks. She liked to think she knew how to deal. Now she realized she should amend that: she knew how to deal with hers. Jake’s were another matter.

Sleep overs became a thing early in the relationship, or at least Amy had thought so. There was a lot of Jake coming over, and a lot of them Not Sleeping, and she bought him a toothbrush. But he never once invited her to his place. 

 

“Seriously?” he had said, when she asked. “Your apartment is so nice that after Thanksgiving I opened one of your paychecks to make sure we were getting the same amount.”

She gave him a half-smile. “Turns out you’re just super irresponsible with your finances?”

“Yep!” He raised his hand for a high-five which she reluctantly returned.

 

But that was fine -- her apartment _was_ nice. Except… Jake didn’t actually spend that much time there. Now four weeks in, the toothbrush was still unopened. She still had yet to wake up with him still in the apartment.

It didn’t feel in any way like he was sneaking out, or trying to get away. He left her cutesy notes on her kitchen table, and always sent good morning texts, and so for a while she felt awkward bringing it up. This wasn’t helped by the fact that she first chose to broach the subject at work for some reason. 

 

“Do I sense trouble in the Peraltiago household?” asked Gina. She was leaning against the glass window of the captain’s office and didn’t look up from her phone.

“You don’t even work here anymore,” said Amy. “And no, I just…” She trailed off and shrugged, picking at something on the collar of her pantsuit.

“We’re fine,” stressed Jake. “And also, our celebrity couple’s name is clearly Jamy.”

“Mm, sweetie, no.” She fixed her gaze on something invisible behind the pair. “Oh, loving God, when will Jake’s swagger return from the war?”

 

A week later, the Vulture had been leading a one-man crusade to mess Jake up. This culminated in assigning a stake out that lasted 26 hours. 

Jake yawned loudly as he followed Amy out of the precinct. “Sorry, Ames,” he said. “Can’t wow you and open new doors for you sexually tonight. I gotta get home, catch up on my tivo, sleep for the next 30 hours…”

Amy rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. “You’re in no position to drive. Come on, my apartment’s closer. You can crash there.”

He nodded numbly.

Once there, he collapsed in her bed without a second thought. She woke him long enough to get his shoes off (um, ew) and got ready for bed before climbing in herself, kissing the top of his head, and falling asleep.

 

She woke up at 3:03 am with the knowledge that something was wrong. She glanced at the empty space beside her. “Jake?” she asked cautiously.

“One sec!” he called hastily from her… closet? His voice was wrong; it sounded shaky, nervous, guilty.

She rolled out of bed, groggy and sweaty. She swept her hair out of her face and peeked into the walk-in closet. “Jake…?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

She glanced down, her eyes still adjusting. He was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around his legs, and, Amy thought, _not fine_.

She crouched to get a better look at him. He was sweaty, and his hands, despite being clutched together, were shaking. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said. “Look at me, okay, Jake?”

He did.

“Good. Okay.” She nodded, and tucked her hair behind her ear, and tried desperately to remember what she was supposed to do in this situation. “Okay, um--” She cut herself off. She was Amy Santiago. She could handle this. She slipped into first-responder-at-a-crime-scene mode, before deciding that wasn’t right and adding fifty percent stupidly-in-love-girlfriend mode.

“What do you need? Can I touch you?”

He nodded, so she rested a hand gently on his shoulder. “You’re doing great. I want you to breathe with me, okay?” She took in slow, deliberate breaths. “In, out, just like that.”

He followed her lead until he was mostly breathing normally.

She smiled, relieved. She moved a pair of shoes out of the way and sat next to him. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m right here, okay? Whatever you need.”

He smiled at her, still silent. Finally, after a few minutes, he breathed, “Okay, I’m-- Thanks, Ames. You can go back to bed.”

She looked at him, mouth slightly agape. After a moment of not getting anything out she made a decision. She stood and extended a hand. “Come on,” she said.

He took it, and she pulled him up and lead him to the kitchen. She flicked on the electric light and they both blinked for a minute. She walked to her pantry and pulled out a tin of hot cocoa powder.

“Really, Ames?” asked Jake. His voice wasn’t quite to usual Jake pep levels, but it was getting there.

She shrugged, pulling a gallon of milk from the fridge. “When I was a teenager… My brother Marc could always tell. This is what he always did for me.”

He stood next to her and smiled warmly. “Thank you… Amy, I mean, seriously. You don’t have to…”

She cut him off. “Of course I do.” She thought about adding, “I love you,” but decided there had been enough surprises for one night, and it was implied, anyway.

She finished stirring the brown drinks and handed one to him. They sat next to each other at her dining room table and both waited for the other to speak first.

Finally, Jake said, “I guess, I don’t know. It started when I was a kid, after my dad left, and then I kept expecting it to go away. It does, for a while, you know, but then they come back… so yeah. That’s the sitch.” He looked everywhere but at her. He still hadn’t touched the cocoa.

Amy took a sip and left her hands around the warm mug. She pressed her knee against his. “Hey, Jake, look at me okay? I think you’re the best. And your dad… I don’t know. He made a stupid decision that cost him one of the awesomest things he could have had. But that’s his deal, not… not yours.”

He smiled, opened his mouth to say something, looked down. “I love you,” he said.

Amy grinned. She was starting to like surprises. “I love you, too,” she said.

He kissed her.

 

Jake did not get better right away. But he quit sneaking out, and she was two thirds of the way to convincing him to start therapy, and she considered both of those wins.

 

“I hate Jake’s dad,” said Boyle one day, when the topic came up. Amy, who was standing next to him, took a sip of her coffee. “Same,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, as if realizing for the first time, “he stays over, doesn’t he?”

Amy looked over at him. “You know?” she asked.

“Of course I know!” he cried.

“Got any tips?”

She was asking half-sarcastically, but she turned out glad she did, because Boyle _does_. He knows what kind of tea Jake likes and how long it takes for him to fall back asleep. She teaches him how to tell if he’s having an attack during the day in case she’s not there.

They take care of him. Of course they do. They love him.

 

Amy bit her bottom lip. The part of her that was being rational knew this was a mistake, not her decision.

The rest of her was angry.

She hit send.

_Srry, dad, cancel flight. Big Case. can’t get out of work. Latzz_

“Hey,” said Jake, picking his jacket off the back of his chair. “You ready to go?”

She smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist. She slipped the phone back into his pocket. “You know it.”


End file.
